As more families choose to homeschool their children, the demand for quality home education resources continues to grow. Whether you are a new homeschooler or have been educating your children at home for years, having access to the right tools and materials is essential to ensure a successful and fulfilling homeschooling experience.
In this blog post, we will explore some of the best resources available to homeschoolers, including online courses, educational apps, and learning materials that can be used at home. Whether you’re looking for ways to supplement your curriculum, teach a particular subject, or simply look for new ideas, we’ve got you covered.
The Learning through play approach
Learning through play is an essential part of a child’s development. It is a process that engages children in active, creative, and meaningful experiences, helping them learn new concepts and skills in a fun and engaging way.
We at LondonDucklings are great fans of play-based learning, which is also why we’ve created a special section with emoji riddles and interactive quizzes available on the blog. These fun and interactive activities are an excellent way to engage children and get them enthusiastic about learning. By exploring the city through quizzes and riddles, children can learn about the rich history and culture of London while having fun at the same time.
Children’s maps and atlases
Colourful and engaging children’s maps can make home education more fun and effective. Check my list of recommended children’s maps and atlases that I have great personal experience with when homeschooling my children.
One of the benefits of children’s maps is that they stimulate the visual sense and the imagination. They capture the attention and curiosity of children with bright colours and attractive images. They also encourage children to create their own maps using their creativity and imagination.
Another benefit of children’s maps is that they enhance the spatial awareness and the geographical knowledge. They teach children about the shapes, sizes, locations, and features of different countries, continents, oceans, and regions. They also help children compare and contrast the physical and cultural aspects of different places and people.
Children’s maps are a great way to enrich your home education experience and to inspire your children to learn more about the world. You can find a variety of maps online or in bookstores, or you can create your own maps with your children using paper, pens, stickers, or other materials. The possibilities are endless!
Emoji Riddles: A great way to make home education fun and effective
Emoji riddles can be a fun and effective way for teenagers to learn about a specific topic. By presenting information playfully and engagingly, emoji riddles can capture teenagers’ attention and spark their curiosity. Additionally, emoji riddles challenge teenagers to think creatively and critically as they work to decipher the hidden message. This can help teenagers develop important problem-solving and analytical skills.
Also, the use of emojis in riddles can be a great way to make learning more relatable and accessible for teenagers who are accustomed to communicating through social media and texting. Including emoji riddles as a home education resource can be an excellent way to engage and motivate teenagers to learn about a specific topic. By learning about the city’s landmarks, events, and famous figures, children can develop a deeper appreciation for their city and its culture.
Interactive Online Quizzes: Learn, test, repeat
Online quizzes are a great way for children to learn about a specific topic in a fun and interactive way. These quizzes can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection and cover a wide range of subjects, from science and math to history and literature. They are designed to test children’s knowledge of a particular subject while also providing them with immediate feedback and explanations for the correct answers.
LondonDucklings’ quizzes are made to be a fun and interactive way for children to learn about London. These quizzes use images and easy-to-understand logic to engage children and make learning about London’s rich history and culture a breeze.
From famous landmarks and events to iconic figures, the quizzes are suitable for children of all ages and interests. By incorporating colorful images and interactive questions, we try to bring the city to life and make learning about London fun and exciting for children. Additionally, the quizzes provide immediate feedback and explanations for correct answers, helping children learn while playing the quizzes.
Make the world your classroom
Certain school assignments will be mandatory and non-negotiable but beyond these tasks, it’s important to give children a say in what you will be focusing on. Learning is most effective when driving through intrinsic motivation, so try to include different types of activities in your sessions.
Most likely they’ll have some favourite themes they are fascinated by; for us, it’s all about the Tudors and the Vikings when it comes to learning history. Strong female characters like Ronja, the robber’s daughter and Pippi Longstocking are great motivators for reading.
Kids’ fascination for animals and nature is great when it comes to learning about geography and new countries. Here are some examples of thinking out of the box:
- Give the grandparents a call on Skype to talk about how things were when they were kids. Did they experience the war? What type of toys did they play with when they were kids? What materials were they made of?
- Put up a bird feeder outside your kitchen window to help your kids identify birds.
- Take a walk in your local park and look at leaves and find out more about leaf characteristics and how leaves can be used to identify plants.
- Make paper mache planets to learn about the solar system. Check ProjectKid for DIY ideas.
- Teach science to kids through baking; show them how a raising agent (like baking soda) works with another ingredient.
- Encourage pretend play; let your kids dress up and act like their favourite character
Online home education resources
- Xtramath XtraMath is a completely free home education app that helps students learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts.
- BrainPop BrainPop is a collection of home education sites with over 1,000 small animated movies for students in grades K-12, together with quizzes and similar materials, including the subjects of science, social studies, English, math, engineering and technology, health, and arts and music
- CuriosityStream CuriosityStream is a private media company and video-on-demand streaming service. It is offering subscription-based nonfiction documentaries and series about science, nature, history, technology, society and lifestyle.
- Tynker Tynker is a home education programming platform directed at educating children how to create games and programs. Rather than typing the source code, you visually drag blocks of code and snap them together.
- Outschool Outschool is a community marketplace of online classes for kids. They help parents discover and enrol for classes that are offered outside of regular school. They also support teachers, both professional and amateur, manage and promote their classes to parents.
- Udemy 100,000 online video courses great for home education
- Best Academy Online Beast Academy Online is an interactive online platform that guides students through elementary-school math with puzzles and problem-solving practice.
- Khan Academy Khan Academy is a home education platform with a wide set of online tools that help educate students.
- Creative Bugs A great home education site to access to thousands of online art and craft classes.
- Discovery Education A range of services like digital content, interactive lessons, virtual experiences with Discovery’s presenters and contributors, classroom contests and challenges.
- Virtual Museum Tours Virtual tour of 12 famous museums from the safety and comfort of your home
- All-in-one Homeschooling Free homeschooling curriculum for home education with everything from preschool activities to 12th grade.
10 educational YouTube channels
- Crash Course Kids The bi-weekly show from the producers of Crash Course is all about grade school science. They are looking at Earth, Habitats, Space, Chemical Reactions, Engineering, and much much more with host Sabrina Cruz.
- Cosmic Kids Yoga Yoga, mindfulness and relaxation designed especially for kids aged 3+, used in schools and homes all over the world.
- Art for kids hub This YouTube station gives attainable, simple art instruction from a father and usually his son.
- Science Channel Learn about outer space, leading scientific exploration, new technology, earth science basics, & more with science videos & news from Science Channel.
- SciShow Kids SciShow We like how they explain complex scientific concepts in an easy-to-understand way that is also entertaining for children. A great (and slightly addictive) channel for families educating at home!
- NatGeoKids Nat Geo Kids is a home education app that makes it fun to explore your world with weird, wild, and wacky videos! Videos featuring wonderful animals, cool science, curious pets
- FreeSchool FreeSchool is a safe and friendly place to expose children to famous art, classical music, children’s literature, and natural science in an age-appropriate and kid-accessible way.
- Geofocus The GEOfocus channel is all about geography! I love geography, maps, flags, culture, languages, and travel. The videos I create for this channel include profiles of countries and regions, descriptions of important landmarks and geographical features (both natural and man-made), and discussions of international issues. Get to know planet Earth and how mankind interacts with it!
- Brainscoop Sharing the work and research of natural history museums with the world
- SciShow A YouTube science show for kids releasing daily well-produced videos 5-10 min long. A great choice for homeschoolers!
20 games and apps great for homeschooling
- Poio App for Apple and Android for teaching children how to read
- Starfall Learning through playing games is a great approach for home education
- Abcya Over 400 fun and educational games categorized by grade and subject covering topics such as multiplication, parts of speech, typing, pattern recognition
- Funbrain Funbrain offers hundreds of games, books, comics, and videos that develop skills in math, reading, problem-solving and literacy
- Splashlearn StudyPad’s vision is to transform K-12 learning by making it fun and personalized for every child and to prepare them for skills required in 21st-century.
- Storyline Online The children’s literacy website, Storyline Online, streams videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations
- PBS kids Home education resource from PBS that makes it easy for kids to get quickly up and running learning through interactive games.
- Highlights kids Highlights for Children, often referred to simply as Highlights, is an American children’s magazine. The website is for children of all ages to play games and discover new jokes, surveys, answers to science questions, and fun crafts and recipes from Highlights
- Nat Geo Kids Magazine featuring facts about animals, science, history and geography, along with fun competitions, games and more
- CoolMath4kids Simple and straightforward games that are easy to get started with, no registration required. We like this website!
- Math Game Time Math Game Time was created by educators to help kids succeed to provide a fun, educational playground for students in Pre-K through 7th grade to excel in math.
- Unite for Literacy Unite for Literacy has developed the platform, publishing tools, and systems-based strategies that support our public and private sector partners to change the literacy landscape of their communities and optimize the future for all their young children.
- Literactive Literactive is a provider of reading material for pre-school, kindergarten and grade 1 students available online.
- Science for kids Learn more about the amazing world of science by enjoying fun science experiments, cool facts, online games, free activities, ideas, lesson plans, photos, quizzes, videos & science fair projects.
- Switch Zoo Switch Zoo has 142 species, and the website features additional animal games, music created from animal voices, a reference section, lesson plans, and poetry, stories and artwork created by students and other visitors.
- SeussVille The Cat in the Hat, Sam-I-Am, Horton and the Whos, and the rest of the Seuss characters welcome you to Seussville, Dr. Seuss’s playground in cyberspace
- Turtle Diary Interactive ways of learning with the help of fun online games, videos, experiments, puzzles, colouring sheets, and more!
- e-learningforkids Free and fun digital education for children worldwide
- Happy Numbers Game-based learning where kids get visual rewards of special creatures hatching from eggs and revealing new planets for having completed math practice.
- Seterra A fun, interactive geography game with quizzes great for home education